The Scented Garden

Free Will the reward of Union. 87 XX THE QAZI If I had ever been angry with thee, O luscious buttocked tulip ! I would have forgiven thee for thy device upon this cow-bellied Qazi. I am repaid pouch the hundred dirhams1 thereof. For, supping with him, thou didst make him exceedingly drunk. Then, introducing Abdullah Kaffur,2 that catamite of our grandfathers, thou didst present to the besotted fellow that poxy podex with its heaped haemorrhoids, like a well whose wall has been broken down. Now therefore that ass-membered one — Allah forget him !—is very sick. Neither from his nose nor from his member will men be able to read that he is a Jew,3 O beloved one with a nose like a rose- tinted ivory statue and a member like a young al- mond tree in blossom ! for both are dropped off. Beware, if thou ridest in the bazaar, that thou dost not hurt the good Qazi, the just one, the in- corruptible one, the wise one, the merciful to the afflictions of the poor,4 by stepping upon his nose or his member ! Beware ! sayeth El Qahar the seer. 1. Dirham — a coin, equivalent according to Darmstetter to about 13s. 6d of our money. But the word is used very loosely to imply a piece of money, so that 100 dirhams here probably stands for a shilling or less.